Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly #1) – Susan Dennard

Title: Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly #1) by Susan Dennard
Publishing Info: July 24, 2012 by HarperCollins
Genres: Historical Fiction, Paranormal, Steampunk, Young Adult, Zombies
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: October 7, 2012
Related Posts: A Dawn Most Wicked (Something Strange and Deadly #0.5), A Darkness Strange and Lovely (Something Strange and Deadly #2), Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3), Truthwitch (The Witchlands #1)

Philadelphia 1876. The Dead are rising. A zombie delivers a letter to Eleanor Fitt. Whoever controls the Dead Army has her brother. She avoids her mother's choice of husband for the lab of Spirit Hunters, including the maddeningly stubborn yet handsome Daniel. The situation threatens her reputation, and the lives of everyone in the city.

This was quite an interesting book, I must say! There actually wasn’t as much zombie action as I had expected so since I’m not a big zombie person, it was kind of nice. It actually dealt a little bit more with the paranormal/magic combined with steampunk and industrial. It was interesting the way the two combined. I haven’t read any steampunk before so I was a bit nervous to see that present in the book, but it really worked out quite perfectly. I loved how the machinery aspect intertwined with the paranormal.

Obviously I had my suspicions throughout the whole book (Susan Dennard leads us up to them), but really there were so many surprises in the end even though I suspected a lot. I had a few moments where I was like, “I can’t believe that really just happened!” I was glad that a lot of the twists, although there was a lot of foreshadowing, they were still quite surprising. The author did a great job figuring out how to put those pieces together.

I thought it finished strong and overall I really enjoyed it. I think I was expecting something a little different so I was slightly caught off guard, but this may have been better than what I was expecting. That being said, it still didn’t quite knock me off my feet. I felt like Eleanor could have been a much stronger character and I felt like some of her actions just “fit” the story instead of adding a little extra conflict and really develop a better and more realistic character.

Eleanor: In a lot of ways, Eleanor was a strong character. She was brave, she was fearless, but I felt like she could have been developed a whole lot more as a person.
Elijah: We have a lot of questions throughout the whole book what Elijah’s true intentions are. Clearly he’s a very interesting character and I think his story may be one of the most interesting in the book.
Clarence:  I really didn’t like Clarence at first — but towards the end, I think I really started to like him. It was hard to understand whether he was a good guy or a bad guy or just confused.

Try it!

It was interesting! An entertaining book. I wasn’t totally WOWED or anything but it was a lot of fun!

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